A Young People’s Crusade

In 1212 in Europe there was what was called The Children’s Crusade to take back the Holy Lands.

In 2018 in America there is seriously fomenting a Young People’s Crusade – these are not children --  to take back their lives from mass murderers with unlimited access to the automatic weapons that are used in so-called “school shootings” on a nearly daily basis.

Of the 327 million people in this country, more than 88 million are under 21. This is the kind of potential power even the most jaded and cynical politician can understand and rightfully fear. The surviving Parkland students and young people throughout the country have evidently had their fill of so-called adult politicians doing nothing to stem the slaughter -- including very prominently Donald J. Trump, who immediately couched his response to the Parkland shootings as an FBI failure. Trump got more than $30 million from the National Rifle Association for his presidential campaign.

Young people’s response was immediate and dramatic: a three-minute lie-in in front of the White House on – fittingly – Presidents Day. The prone young people represented the dead Parkland students and the three-minute duration represented how long it takes for anyone over 18 to buy an automatic weapon in Florida, which has the most lax gun control laws in a nation already armed to the teeth. While the young people lay in front of the White House, Florida Governor Rick Scott was probably working on the speech he will deliver to the National Rifle Association’s annual convention in Dallas in May – where he is an invited and welcomed speaker. Florida’s Republican Senator “Little Mario” Rubio has accepted more than $3 million in contributions from the NRA.

The Parkland shootings were on Valentine’s Day, horribly enough, and to see the mealy-mouthed NRA champion Scott mouthing platitudes of hearts and prayers at the shooting scene was a study in obscenity. 

But a hard rain is going to fall on these political NRA whores. “If they accept this blood money, they‘re against the children,” said Emma Gonzales, a senior at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School at a weekend rally in Fort Lauderdale. Her remarks have drawn 20 million views on Facebook.  She called bullshit on every lame excuse NRA whore politicians have thrown up in their single-minded pursuit of this blood money. They are accomplices to mass murder, plain and simple.

On March 24, there will be a “March for Our Lives” in Washington and in other cities in America, spearheaded by the surviving Parkland students. Young people have already demonstrated at NRA headquarters in Washington, chanting of the shame the NRA should bear.

These marches and demonstrations are certainly well and good, but they can hopefully also be the start of a campaign to turn out the 88 million young people to vote out of office any and all politicians who don’t support strong gun control measures or are beholden to the largesse of the conscienceless NRA.

There will be more school shootings. That is now the American way of death. But these aberrations should only increase the dedication and creativity of the young people who are building a campaign into a crusade – a crusade to take back their lives from a dark shadow that carries an AR-15.

May God bless and empower these young crusaders. And may God damn the politicians who have made their crusade necessary.